Final conference of the Nordic Council of Ministers’ project “Waste Awareness: Sorting, Treatment, Education" took place in Petrozavodsk, bringing together participants from the cities of the North-West of Russia, Finland, Denmark, experts in the field of ecology, economics, management, members of NGOs, teachers. The conference discussed the outcomes of the project, among which – strengthening the competence of a wide range of professionals working in the field of waste management, active involvement of kindergartens and schools of Petrozavodsk in the process of teaching about the proper waste handling, start of the process of separate waste collection in the educational institutions, establishing of Info-Center for waste handling on the basis of Avtospetstrans municipal waste management enterprise.

Info-Center is equipped with modern informational materials, mobile exhibition on the theme of recycling and second life of recovered materials and is intended for organization of field trainings for secondary school students.

A separate important theme of the project was development of new approaches to the treatment of waste on the insular territories and protected areas – one of the project partners was the Kizhi Open Air Museum. In cooperation with Finnish experts waste logistic plan for the island was developed. For the first time in 2013 transportation of sorted waste from the island was organized with the support of Avtospetstrans municipal company.

Following the conference, proposals were made for continuation of the project. It has been stressed out that more attention should be paid to a challenging subject of supporting start-ups and small businesses working in the sphere of collecting and processing certain types of waste not only in Petrozavodsk, but also in districts of Karelia. Amid the growing request for the introduction of separate collection coming from residents, it is necessary to continue and develop the work with the institutions of pre-school and secondary education, widely attract volunteers and establish cooperation within triangle power - business - community.Russian project partners – Swedish-Karelian Business and Information Center and Petrozavodsk City Administration – plan to continue efforts on attracting international experience to the field. A new project proposal is now under discussion, which will take into consideration recommendations made ​​during the conference.